The bees, ahh the bees. Well, they are all back from the borage and all survived (since I lost one to wasps); I thought they hadn’t but they were just light on transport.
I’d oddly lost one on treatment, the entrance was closed down and I think basically they got trapped inside, and with large numbers they starved quickly.
I’ve fed them all, some had already put in ivy honey which was starting to cloud up in the hive – uh oh. Some took down inverted syrup really well – others have hardly touched it and are a bit light so I guess I will be topping up with fondant over winter.
I went and put on all the mouse guards the other day. One mating hive has survived the wasp onslaught and so to get it through the winter I have put it inside a national brood box and put a hessian sack around it to keep off the worst of the weather.